Field of Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to content inspection processors, and, more specifically, to programming and operation of such processors.
Description of Related Art
In the field of computing, content inspection tasks are increasingly challenging. For example, pattern-recognition, a subset of content inspection tasks, may become more challenging to implement because of larger volumes of data and the number of patterns that users wish to identify. For example, spam or malware are often detected by searching for content, e.g., patterns in a data stream, such as particular phrases or pieces of code. The number of patterns increases with the variety of spam and malware, as new patterns may be implemented to search for new variants. Searching a data stream for each of these patterns can form a computing bottleneck. Often, as the data stream is received, it is searched for each pattern, one at a time. The delay before the system is ready to search the next portion of the data stream increases with the number of patterns. Thus, content inspection may slow the receipt of data.
Further, in many pattern recognitions, searches, or other content inspection tasks, the content inspection process is performed using (e.g., according to, against, with respect to, etc.) a fixed and defined set of search criteria. The device performing the content inspection process does not adjust to changes in input data and/or results data.